


Tequila Sunrise

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus [71]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Attempted Murder, Betrayal, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Friendship/Love, Horror, Male-Female Friendship, Master of Death Harry Potter, Possession, Thriller, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21710971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: In the fall of 1992, Ginny Weasley stepped on the train to Hogwarts with a brand new diary in hand eager to meet her personal hero, Ellie Potter. Only, nothing quite works out the way she thought it would.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Series: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus [71]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1105731
Comments: 28
Kudos: 162





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t a diary Ginny would have chosen for herself. It was a rather plain thing, dull, black, perfect for a very serious boy but not so much for her. She imagined that it’d been perfect for Tom M. Riddle, whose name was inscribed in elegant, faded, writing on the inside cover. But things gotten second hand never fit quite right, and Ginny was used to secondhand things.

Ron got the worst of it, being the youngest son where Ginny was just the youngest daughter, but she was used to things not quite fitting. She was used to everything never belonging to just her. So, when she’d found the diary in her cauldron, she hadn’t asked for a different one, she hadn’t asked what she’d done to get a diary at all.

Ginny was well aware that Ron hadn’t gotten a diary when he’d gone off to Hogwarts. He hadn’t even gotten his own wand.

Not that Ron had ever wanted a diary, or that she’d wanted one either. Too many brothers around the house to read through it and ferret out all her secrets. Leaving around a diary was just handing Fred and George infinite ammunition and Ginny wasn’t that stupid.

At the same time, it could be nice. It’d be someone to talk to at least. Last year, when even Ron had been off in school, it’d been so quiet. Ginny hadn’t realized how big and empty the Burrow was until everyone had gone and left. The only reprieve from it had been Looney Lovegood from down the street, and there was only so much of nargles Ginny could take.

Percy, Fred, George, and Ron would probably pretend to be too cool for her now that they were in school and she was just their silly firstie sister. No, she knew it, Percy had rushed off to sit with his fellow prefect, Fred and George with their own friends, and Ron had thrown her out of his compartment.

They probably were too busy to even read her diary.

Ginny pulled it out, a grin growing on her face. She looked around furtively, but there was no one in her compartment. Good.

_“My brothers are stupid, pig-headed, ugly, prats who will never ever have girlfriends.”_

And then, after a second’s pause, she added, _“Eat my hexes, Ron”_

Oh, he’d be so mad when he read that, thinking he’d get all her secrets only to find she’d bloody outfoxed him.

Now, what else should she write?

She blinked down at the page in confusion. Her message, it wasn’t there anymore. There wasn’t a trace of ink left, just a pristine, white, page. The same page she’d seen when she’d first bought it.

Slowly, Ginny deliberately wrote her message again. This time she stared down and watched as the ink faded, blot by blot, until it disappeared entirely into the page of the notebook.

“That’s odd,” Ginny said to herself.

You know, now that she thought about it, it was a little strange how a used notebook had no messages written in it. Ginny had assumed that Tom M. Riddle had torn out the pages or else charmed it clean before he sold it off.

Except, while the cover was worn looking, each of the pages was stark white. There were no yellowed edges, no curled corners, nothing that gave away how old it should be. She’d supposed that had been charms too, some sort of preservation charm…

And maybe the disappearing words were some charm too, a minor enchantment designed to keep your secrets for you. Yeah, that must be it, and then when Ginny wrote again or wrote a pass phrase it’d come back.

“It’s to keep out snoops!” Ginny cried out, oh this was much better than some dumb pink diary she could have gotten. This was exactly the diary she was looking for!

She set her pen down, determined to actually write about her day. She’d write about the Hogwarts Express, her empty compartment, the future sorting and overwhelming fear she’d be put in Slytherin. Even if Ellie Potter was in Slytherin, and that meant it couldn’t be so bad no matter what Ron said.

And if Ginny was in Slytherin, maybe that was a way to get closer to her than Ron ever could…

“Huh?” Ginny blinked down, the diary wasn’t empty anymore, but instead a single sentence was written in cursive far more elegant than her own.

_“It’s not very nice to call your brothers prats.”_

That definitely wasn’t there before. It wasn’t disappearing either. It stayed there like she’d just written it herself. Maybe the diary was a little more enchanted than she thought, enough to have a personality inscribed in it.

Biting her lip Ginny wrote, _“Have you ever met my brothers?”_

Her words disappeared quickly then, almost immediately after, she saw a sentence written from right to left as if someone were standing over her shoulder etching out the words.

_“Being a book, I can’t say I meet people these days.”_

She could almost hear its voice, the way it drawled, like Percy always wanted to but never could quite manage.

_“Then shut it.”_

A slight pause, then, _“You have spirit, don’t you?”_

_“I have a lot more than just that.”_

_“Yes, I imagine you do. What’s your name?”_

_“Ginny Weasley. Do you have a name?”_

_“Of course I do,”_ the diary responded easily, _“You read it on the front cover.”_

Tom M. Riddle.

* * *

Ginny almost forgot about all of it. The train, her brothers, Hogwarts, the sorting, and the mysterious Ellie Potter looming in the distance. She even almost forgot to change into her new uniform, cursing and throwing everything on only when the whistle blew for their entrance into Hogsmeade’s station.

Ginny spent her ride on the Hogwarts Express alone scribbling in a diary.

He hadn’t always been a book, or at least, that’s what he said. Exactly fifty years ago in 1942 he’d been a sixteen-year-old boy attending Hogwarts. Not just any boy either, he’d been Slytherin prefect, and had not too humbly assumed that he’d probably have been Head Boy if he’d made it to 1945.

_“Come off it, prefect?”_ Ginny scoffed, _“If you were good enough to be prefect then how’d you get yourself trapped in a bloody book?”_

Not that Ginny thought being prefect was all that special. Sure, she might have, but that was before Percy became prefect. If smarmy Percy could become a prefect then just about anybody could.

Though she had to say, even if this Tom book was off his rocker, she thought he’d make a better prefect than Percy. He actually paid attention to her, she hadn’t a had a conversation this good in ages, and he could take a joke.

Percy’s trouble was that he could never take a joke and took himself much too seriously. Tom could not only brush it off, but he could give back as good as he got. Ginny liked that.

_“Trapped is such an ugly word,”_ the book, Tom, replied, _“You’re assuming I didn’t plan this.”_

_“What, like you wanted to be a book for fifty years?”_

_“Tom Marvolo Riddle is not the book, Ginny,”_ he said, _“He still exists somewhere out there in the real world. This diary is only an impression of him, a collection of his will and memories from a single instant in time.”_

_“What do you mean?”_ Ginny frowned, she hadn’t really meant anything by her own question. Well, she had, just that she knew she’d be royally pissed if she’d managed to get herself stuck in a book.

Except, she didn’t get what he was saying.

_“You know portraits?”_ he asked.

“Oh,” she said to herself in realization. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Dad always said that a lot of muggle borns first thought that portraits actually contained their subjects in them. What they really were was just what the artist thought that person was like. Usually, they got this from memories of people who paid for the painting, knew them, or sometimes the memories of the subject themselves.

So portraits talked like the person, sometimes they even recalled events of that person’s life, but they weren’t really that person. They were just a really good imitation.

_“This diary is like that, only a good deal more sophisticated.”_

A good deal more sophisticated, what an ego. Still, Ginny liked that, she felt like he could live up to it, was just waiting for her to press him on it so he could rub it back in her face. Ginny liked him and she was pretty sure he already knew it.

Tom Marvolo Riddle, in early summer of 1943, decided to leave an impression of himself in a notebook as a living diary. A time capsule he’d called it at first, to remind the older version of himself just what he’d been like at that age.

The other, real, Tom Riddle had probably finished Hogwarts (the diary version assuring her that he’d likely been first in his class, breaking OWL and NEWT records all over the place, and been head boy to boot) and gone on to have some career where Ginny never heard of him. If he was still around, he’d be sixty-six years old.

So, naturally, he wanted to know anything and everything that had happened since then.

Ginny knew there’d been some muggle war or another with Germany, that it’d been going on around the same time of the first wizarding war on the continent. She was pretty sure they’d ended around the same, certainly it’d all worked out for the best, as she was pretty sure muggle London wasn’t a German colony.

She was pretty sure her dad would have told her about that.

Turned out though that Tom knew a lot more about all that than she did. He’d been muggle born, he confessed easily. Which a muggle born in Slytherin, he did have balls, didn’t he? Even fifty years ago she was pretty sure that wasn’t a thing.

Regardless, Ginny couldn’t tell him much more than that, especially not about the decades immediately after. The first war had never made it to Britain, it’d been the continent that spent the next ten or twenty years rebuilding after everything. The only thing Ginny knew about was He Who Must Not Be Named.

You Know Who.

And that had only been ten years ago.

_“You Know Who?”_

_“We’re… We’re not supposed to say his name,”_ Ginny wrote awkwardly, and as she wrote it, she couldn’t help but cringe. She didn’t know if there was any reason for it, it wasn’t like everyone didn’t know his name already, but there was just this unspoken taboo against it.

Like just saying it might be enough to summon him back.

_“Ginny, I hate to tell you this, but I really don’t know who.”_

It’d be funny, if he said it in any other situation. If he was a person, a real person, she would have slapped him right then. It wasn’t his fault though, he didn’t know, he had no idea what he was saying.

_“I’m serious, Tom, he was—it was really bad.”_

_“Tell me about it.”_

So, she wrote. She wrote about the dark lord from over ten years ago, how he’d ripped the country in half inch by inch. How he’d gathered rogue werewolves, giants, any dark creature he could find and set them loose on innocent people. People were still terrified of creatures, hated and wrote laws to lock them all up, because of it.

She wrote about how he’d slaughtered his way through muggles, muggle borns, and anyone else that dared to stand in his way with his dark pureblood followers. She wrote about how he torched Diagon Alley at least a dozen times and then some and how the aurors couldn’t stop it.

She wrote how everyone said that by 1981 he’d almost won the war.

_“What happened in 1981?”_

_“A miracle,”_ Ginny said, it was short, but that was the best word for it, the only word for it.

The girl who lived had always been there in Ginny’s life. Ginny had been born a year after her, so she wasn’t there for the worst of it, but she did grow up in the aftermath of what Ellie Potter had done for the country.

_“There’s a girl, Ellie Potter, she’s twelve now, but at the time she was only a year old. She did what nobody else could, even when they’d been trying for years, even when Dumbledore had been trying and failing. She defeated You Know Who.”_

There was a long pause this time. Then, finally, he wrote a single word, _“What?”_

His handwriting wasn’t nearly as controlled this time, not so perfect, it looked like his hand was shaking violently when he wrote it. Ginny couldn’t blame him, some people might think that maybe the dark lord wasn’t so bad if a toddler could destroy him, but the fact was that he had been and Ellie Potter was just that special.

And the wizarding world had never forgotten it.

_“It’s famous,”_ Ginny said knowingly, _“October 31 st, 1981, he went to her house. Her parents had been in hiding, they knew he was going to come after them, but then James Potter’s best friend Sirius Black betrayed them and told You Know Who where to find them.”_

Her pen scribbled faster, trying to get it all out as fast as possible, rushing through all those little details that made up the story.

_“So, he walked in the door and he killed James first, killed him right there on the stairs. Then he walked up the stairs and he killed Lily—”_

_“Lily?!”_

The word appeared out of nowhere, writing over her own words, so large the single word took up the entire page.

_“Lily Potter,”_ Ginny clarified slowly, “ _She married James Potter, I… I don’t know her last name from before that.”_

Ginny actually didn’t know much at all about Lily Potter. She knew some about James Potter, the papers and books talked about him more, being Lord Potter and all, but his muggle born wife had just kind of faded into the background.

Ginny tried to wrack her brains for what she knew, _“She was muggle born, everyone says she was very bright, I think she got the best test scores in her year or something. Red hair, green eyes, they say Ellie is her spitting image.”_

Which, that had been something of a shock.

Ginny had just about every Ellie Potter adventure book that had ever been written and every one of those had banked on her looking like a Potter. Ginny could even picture the cover now, where a future seventeen-year-old Ellie Potter stared back with wild dark hair and even wilder green eyes as she fought off a coven of vampires with her helpful friend and love interest, the changeling Aodh, who was later revealed to be secretly related to Merlin.

Some of the other book series, the less interesting ones where she attended princess tea parties, even gave her glasses like her father.

Anyway, Ginny and the whole wizarding world had grown up expecting Ellie Potter to look exactly like James Potter. Everyone had had to do a double take when they heard about the red hair.

Though Ron, the prat, bragged that he still recognized her right away. As if it wasn’t hard to do when she still had the scar, the green eyes, the curly hair, and looked exactly like her mother.

She blinked, realized that Tom hadn’t said anything for a long while now.

_“Tom?”_

She almost asked if he’d known Lily Potter, but that was silly, she’d have to have been born years after him and wouldn’t have been in Hogwarts in 1942.

_“Why did he go after them?”_

_“What?”_

_“Why did he go after the Potters?”_

Ginny frowned, she’d never really thought about that. Well, she had, but no one had ever answered her so she’d figured it wasn’t important. She wasn’t sure anyone really knew why Voldemort had gone and hunted down the Potters like that.

The Potters were a light family, they’d always opposed him, and he had to have hated that.

Except no one else had been in hiding like they had. They’d known he was coming, everyone agreed on that, because that was how Sirius Black was able to betray them to him. And it wasn’t like they knew Black was a Death Eater either, and that was the reason they hid, because they’d trusted him enough that he could do that to them and Pettigrew.

They’d known he was coming, so it wasn’t random, he had to have some really good reason to hunt them down more than anyone else…

She just had no idea what it had been.

Ginny was probably the premier eleven-year-old Ellie Potter expert and even she didn’t know why it had happened.

The story always went that You Know Who came for them on October 31st, without reason or mercy, and Ellie Potter took care of the rest.

_“I don’t know, I don’t know if anyone does, he just did I suppose.”_

The words seemed dull somehow, almost mocking and on edge, _“He just did.”_

_“Well, not just, they knew he was coming remember. So, I guess he had some reason…”_

Maybe he’d known, somehow, about Ellie Potter. Maybe he’d known she was a threat before anyone else, through some dark scrying or something. So, he’d hunted them down and tried to destroy her before she could destroy him.

Only, it hadn’t worked.

Because no one expected Ellie Potter.

_“What happened next?”_

_“He killed Lily Potter upstairs, in Ellie’s room even. And then he turned his wand on Ellie Potter, looking up from her crib. He cast the killing curse and then it happened. The curse rebounded and struck him, burned him to cinders, and left only a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on Ellie Potter’s forehead.”_

Ginny lifted a finger to trace her own forehead, the lightning scar exactly where Ellie’s would be, not on the center of her forehead but a little to the left above her eyebrow, hidden away by mounds of curling red hair.

_“Nobody knew what to do, nobody could believe it. The Death Eaters, his followers, fell apart in a few weeks. Some ran away, some bribed their way out of a trial, and the really nasty ones went to Azkaban. Just like that it was over, like it’d all been a bad dream.”_

Ginny didn’t know too much about that, mostly what Mum and Dad said at the table, ranting about Lucius Malfoy and how his dirty money had kept him out of the dementor pit where he belonged.

Ginny had never cared too much what happened to the Death Eaters, especially the ones that got away.

_“Dumbledore picked up Ellie, and for weeks everyone argued about where she should go. All her wizard relatives were dead, James was the last Potter, which made her closest relatives the Blacks who obviously shouldn’t get her. Sirius Black, her godfather, was sentenced to life in Azkaban for what happened. Alice Longbottom, who’d been her godmother, had been cursed into insanity. She didn’t have anybody, and everybody wanted her.”_

She didn’t wish she could have been there but she could imagine it. The Wizengamot filled with scared old men all screaming at each other over who should get Ellie Potter. Even the Malfoys, as soon as Lucius was pardoned, tried to put in a bid for her never minding that he was supposed to be recovering from the imperius right then.

_“Dumbledore ended up placing her somewhere for safe keeping. Nobody knew where, just that it was somewhere safe until she could attend Hogwarts. And then, last year in 1991, she did.”_

She wished she could say more, had more to work with, but Ron was bloody useless. He was in her year, had watched Ginny cry when he went on the Hogwarts Express because he got to meet her when Ginny didn’t, and then he came back with nothing.

Just that Ellie Potter was a crazy Slytherin and just as bad as the worst of them. Except that sometimes she did things like beat up Malfoy, which made her an alright Slytherin.

Ginny didn’t know where Ellie had been, she didn’t know what she’d been doing, and she didn’t even know what had happened to her except that Quirrell had kidnapped her to Albania sometime during the holidays.

Ginny had been off in Egypt enjoying herself when Ellie Potter was bloody kidnapped!

She had a feeling though, no not just a feeling, Ginny knew that somehow Ellie was going to be here. Just like every time, Ellie would beat the odds and make it back to Hogwarts in time for the start of term, if only because Ginny was actually here this year to meet her.

And Ginny wasn’t going to shy away like Ron just because the girl-who-lived was in Slytherin. She wasn’t going to call Ellie barmy or evil just because of the color of her tie.

_“She must be something quite special.”_

Ginny couldn’t help her grin, _“She really is! She’s the most powerful witch of the age, they say she’s even more powerful than Dumbledore and that she can cast any spell just by thinking it.”_

Ron, when pressed, had admitted as much. Ellie had a wand that she sometimes used, but half the time she seemed to forget it and three quarters of the time she didn’t seem to see the point in it.

Because Ellie Potter could do more than wandless parlor tricks but could cast actual, real, powerful spells with her hands tied behind her back. In fact, she could cast spells more powerful, things that were supposed to be impossible, without a wand in hand. No one intimidated her or called her a stupid girl because she hexed them to hell and back without even breaking a sweat.

Ellie Potter was everything Ginny’s books had promised and then some.

And this year Ginny was going to finally meet her.

If, of course, she was here at all.

Tom, of course, didn’t get it, _“Most powerful witch of the age is a very bold claim. Especially for someone only eleven-years-old.”_

She wanted to sigh, it wasn’t his fault, he was fifty years out of date, a book, and a boy to boot, but he was just so damn clueless.

_“She’s twelve now, but I’m serious, everyone knows it even if they don’t want to admit it.”_

_“Because she might have defeated the dark lord?”_

_“First off, she did beat You Know Who—”_

_“Were you there?”_

Ginny frowned, what was that supposed to mean? Of course Ginny wasn’t there, Ginny had just been born.

_“If you weren’t there, if no one was there except Dumbledore in the aftermath, then how do you know it was the girl? Why not the mother who’d been in the same room?”_

_“Lily Potter?”_

The funny thing was, now that Ginny thought about it, she’d never heard of anyone claiming that Lily or James Potter had blown up You Know Who. Some claimed it must have been Dumbledore, that Ellie Potter was just some weird scapegoat except that was mostly bitter purebloods talking.

Everyone pretty well accepted that Ellie Potter had done it, somehow, in some impossible way. That the curse scar, the lightning bolt on her head, was proof enough.

Funny, until Tom had pointed it out, she didn’t realize how weird that must sound. Never mind all that though, that wasn’t the only proof Ginny had.

_“Second, I’ve heard stuff.”_

_“You’ve heard stuff?”_

_“Yeah, I’ve heard stuff. Not much, Ron’s a prat, Percy’s a smarmy git, and Fred and George are useless but I’ve heard at least something. And the way she uses magic, it was Ellie Potter. She beat up the whole Slytherin first and second year class this one time and tried to auction off their wands.”_

Ginny wished she had been there, it sounded amazing.

A year late, but that wasn’t too bad, Ginny still had time…

“Attention, attention please, students of Hogwarts.”

Ginny dropped the diary, Tom, as she startled out of her seat and nearly fell flat on her face. A girl’s voice, probably around Ginny’s age, spoke calmly out of nowhere. A quick glance around and there was still nobody else in her compartment.

“As you may or may not know, I’m Ellie Potter, and this summer I was kidnapped by Quirrell.”

“Ellie Potter?!” Ginny asked no one, flailing as she stood and poked her head out of the compartment. She wasn’t the only one, several had stuck their heads out into the hall but Ellie Potter was nowhere in sight.

“It was about as much fun as you can expect,” Ellie continued with a cool, calm, confidence that Ginny could imagine suited her entirely too well.

Ginny had never been able to picture exactly what Ellie Potter sounded or even acted like. Fred and George said she was their goddess, whatever that meant, and Ron was always vague so Ginny had tried and failed to come up with it on her own.

Would she sound like Ginny or would there be something more assured and commanding to her? What did someone that powerful sound like anyway?

Ellie didn’t leave Ginny any time to think as she continued with her matter of fact announcement about her return from being kidnapped. And oh, hadn’t Ginny called it? Long before anyone else, that no matter what happened Ellie Potter would be back.

Quirrell was no match for Ellie Potter if even You Know Who had been ashes in seconds.

“And after a series of wild and horrific adventures in Albania with Comrade Lepur Rabbitson, we have returned to this fine establishment sans Quirrell. If you have any questions, I won’t answer them.”

And then complete and utter silence.

Ginny walked back to her seat in a daze, slumped over, and felt as if she was floating away in a kind of dream.

“Wow.”

It was really happening, Ginny was going to see her, Ginny was going to meet her and if a miracle happened then maybe Ginny could even be—

“I have to get into Slytherin,” Ginny realized, it was the only, well the easiest way.

Ron would kill her, but he’d get over himself eventually.

Except, how was she supposed to do that without knowing how to get sorted? Fred and George swore you had to battle a troll, but they were probably lying their asses off for shits and giggles. Still, it wasn’t like anyone else had told her anything either.

It was this big, useless, secret that the entire world was in on.

And now Ginny had no one to ask but—

“Tom!” Ginny realized, and threw herself down on the floor, picking up the diary.

Written on the page was a single, solitary, sentence, _“Ginny, are you still there?”_

_“Sorry,”_ Ginny wrote hurridly, _“Ellie Potter just made some kind of announcement, it was mental.”_

_“Ellie Potter?”_

_“Right, but Tom, you went to Hogwarts. How do we actually get sorted? Ellie Potter’s in Slytherin and I have to get into Slytherin or else I’ll never meet her and I’ll be doomed forever because my entire family’s been Gryffindor for generations and—”_

_“Your hand’s going to cramp if you write that fast.”_

_“Sorry,”_ Ginny wrote sheepishly, but she got the feeling he was amused more than anything. Though how much you were supposed to read into handwriting was anyone’s guess.

_“It’s alright, as for the sorting, that’s traditionally kept secret you know. But, having never been one for tradition, it’s a talking, mind reading, hat.”_

_“A hat?”_ that sounded… Ginny wasn’t saying she’d rather have trolls or anything but a hat was kind of a let down.

_“It even sings a little song every year.”_

_“So… How do I beat the hat?”_

_“You don’t.”_

_“What?”_ Ginny asked.

_“It’s a mind reading hat, Ginny, whose entire purpose is to ferret out all your darkest secrets and shove you into a stereotype accordingly.”_

That was a really Slytherin thing to say… Which now that Ginny thought about it was probably why Tom Riddle had ended up in Slytherin. Plus, if he’d had any brains, he probably hadn’t wanted to go to Slytherin. A muggle born in Slytherin, Ginny couldn’t even imagine the garbage he’d go through. So, the hat probably hadn’t given him much of a choice.

Which meant Ginny was perfectly doomed.

Never the less, the rest of the train ride was spent planning how to outwit the sorting hat and put Ginny as close to Ellie Potter as she could possibly get. From there they moved onto courses, which had been Tom’s favorites and any advice he had, and Hogwarts in general.

Ginny didn’t notice that Ellie herself never really came up again.


	2. Chapter 2

Funny, wasn’t it, how things fell apart so very quickly? Ginny ended her first day of Hogwarts sequestered in the first-year girl Gryffindor bathroom. She wasn’t crying, she wasn’t, but if she sat out there with all her new house mates she just knew she wouldn’t be able to pretend to be happy.

Not right now, maybe not ever.

Even though everyone would think she’d be thrilled to be in Gryffindor, exactly where she belonged.

Well, everyone except the one person who could never rat Ginny out even if he wanted to.

Ginny’s words were wobbly, practically illegible even as she pressed the diary against the wall for a flat writing surface, but they disappeared into the spine of the notebook all the same.

_“Oh Tom, it all went wrong!”_

Ginny hadn’t managed to catch sight of Ellie when she’d exited the train. She thought, for a moment, she might have seen a bright banner of red hair trailing off into the twilight but that was the only sign of her.

Then, in the Great Hall, Ginny had tried but the room had been so crowded and so overwhelming that Ginny hadn’t found her. She kept getting distracted by the ceiling, the candles, and the faces of more children than she’d ever seen in her life. Even when she tried to look at every face in the Slytherin table she still couldn’t find her. She barely had a second to look before she was ushered with the other first years to sit just behind the sorting hat.

Just like Tom had promised, it really was just a hat, and it really did sing a song. Ginny couldn’t say she listened to all of it, it said something about unity and history repeating itself maybe, all she could think was that this was it.

And, just like everything involving a last name, Ginny was last.

Merlin, she almost wished she could take the troll instead. At least with a troll it would probably be based off how you chose to beat it. If you were direct, Gryffindor, sly, Slytherin, and if you ran for you life like a sane person you were probably Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw.

She waited through the A’s, the B’s, the C’s, and then the L’s…

“DEFAULT!”

Looney Lovegood, pale, delicate, and absolutely dotty thing that she was sat under the wide brimmed hat and dazedly peeked out at her stunned audience. Looney Lovegood, in one second, had just broken the sorting hat and probably all of Hogwarts with it.

Ginny watched, mouth open, as Ginny’s dotty neighbor placed the hat on the stool gently and stood with that familiar airhead smile on her face. She looked out at the four and only four tables in the hall, then back up at a dumbfounded McGonagall, “Where’s the Default table?”

Oh, Luna, you fool, Ginny wanted to say, there is no Default table.

Except, before Ginny could open her mouth or melt into the floor out of shame, someone beat her to it.

A single girl stood from her seat at the Gryffindor table, her hair a shock of vibrant golden-red curls. Without even looking at the Luna Lovegood, the staff table, or the rest of them she extended a single pale hand with indomitable confidence.

The Great Hall groaned and shuddered as it expanded beneath her will, a fifth, empty table appearing out of thin air along with a gray and undecorated banner above it.

“Here is the Default table!”

Then, the girl, Ellie Potter, looked over at them with a self-satisfied grin. Her eyes, her eyes were such a bright green, you could see them glowing from all the way across the hall. There was something about her that drew you in, as if she was surrounded in an invisible glow, like a miniature sun caught indoors.

She walked over to the new table, dragging a pale and beautiful boy from the Gryffindor table with her. There was a spring in her step that matched the smile on her face, and, after finding a seat somewhere in the middle she smacked her hand on the table and declared, “Right here, table Default at your service.”

Luna’s dazed smile became a bright grin and, with no hesitation whatsoever, she danced her way over to the new Default table. She was shortly joined by a sighing, bushy haired girl maybe only a year or two older than Ginny, who slowly walked over from the Gryffindor table to sit right next to Ellie.

Leaving unsorted Ginny Weasley behind.

Ginny, when the hat was finally put on her head, had only a single second to plead with it.

Please, she thought, Default. Let me be with her, say it’s Default.

The hat barely waited a second, “It had better be GRYFFINDOR!”

And just like that, Ginny stood, and everything felt bittersweet. Gryffindor, that was good, that was great. She had always wanted to be Gryffindor but she thought Ellie Potter would be too. More, looking now, she could do what that one girl did, she could stand and just walk over and…

  
But she couldn’t, because the hat had told Ginny that she wasn’t worth it. Default, whatever it was, wasn’t for her. And neither was Ellie Potter.

And so here Ginny was, pouring her soul out to a book, the only thing left in her world that could possibly understand what had happened.

_“Oh, Ginny, didn’t I tell you that you can’t fool the hat?”_

Well, yeah, he had but—

_“Ginny, being in Gryffindor is far from the end of the world. More, Default is—”_

He actually stopped writing, halfway through the sentence as if he had no idea how to finish that thought. After a very long pause, he noted.

_“At least Gryffindor is a legitimate house and not some monstrosity made up by this girl who lived.”_

_“Merlin, Tom, you’re such a git,”_ Ginny wrote, but she was smiling, she didn’t know why but she felt better already.

_“Yes, but I’m a git who happens to be right,”_ Tom responded without any shame whatsoever, _“Now, Ginny, are you going to keep sitting around feeling sorry for yourself or are you going to get the girl?”_

Right, Ginny didn’t have to be in Default to become friends with Ellie Potter. Ellie hadn’t even been sitting at Slytherin to start with, which meant Ginny should be able to get close to her somehow. Tom was right, Ginny couldn’t give up now, not before she’d started.

_“You’re right, Tom, I’ve got this!”_

_“Of course you’ve got this, what woman could resist you?”_ Tom asked.

Ginny flushed a vibrant red and slammed the notebook closed. Merlin, his teasing was even worse than Fred and George’s. Still, at least for now, she’d rather have him than her brothers. It’d only been a few hours but she wondered if this was what it felt like to have a best friend.

And was it strange that it was getting harder to remember what it’d been like before Tom had been there?

* * *

Except, there was just something about Ellie Potter that made her impossible to approach.

First off, Ginny hardly ever saw her. She hadn’t realized just how separated the houses were, but more than that, the different years.

Ginny ended up seeing quite a bit of Luna Lovegood as well as Ellie’s beautiful Albanian sidekick, Lepur Rabbitson, who apparently had been held back an entire year for missing half of last term. Ellie, though, that was another story.

Occasionally, Ginny glimpsed her racing through the hallways from one class to another, or else saw her across the Great Hall at meals but—

Ginny wouldn’t call herself shy, exactly, but there was just something about her that Ginny knew she couldn’t reach. Every time she tried to build up her nerve to just go and talk to her already, to walk across the hall and sit down at the Default table, she crumbled.

In the meantime, Ginny felt just a bit too boyish for people in her own year and house. They weren’t on bad terms, exactly, but even in the first few weeks they stopped inviting Ginny along to things.

Ginny’s brothers, as Ginny had suspected, were each far too busy for her and worse seemed embarrassed by her very presence. Ron, the git, had actually run away when she’d tried to sit down with him at breakfast.

As for Luna, who Ginny had always secretly felt better than, well… Luna had moved along to greener pastures. Luna was now one of Ellie Potter’s few chosen followers and the only first year in the whole damn school to get close to her.

So, Tom ended up not just being her best friend but somehow her only friend.

_“I don’t know,”_ she scribbled one night, long after all her dorm mates were asleep, _“I guess I just, I thought I’d be good with people.”_

She’d never thought she was shy, awkward, weird, or any of the other things that might drive off somebody. She wasn’t an arrogant cad like Percy, she wasn’t mean like Fred and George, she wasn’t overly sensitive like Ron, barmy like Luna…

_“Except, I guess I just never met enough people to tell.”_

When your world was confined to only the people who could never leave you, a house full of brothers and a neighbor even more isolated and lonely than Ginny, it gave you confidence you didn’t deserve.

Ginny had grown up thinking…

She’d believed she was likeable.

_“Does it bother you that much?”_

Ginny sighed, that was the real question, wasn’t it? Ginny also had always thought she’d had very thick skin. You had to with six older brothers who loved to tease you. So, it shouldn’t matter that she just didn’t click with anybody here. Except, somehow, it really did.

_“I don’t know,”_ Ginny wrote again, _“I just—I feel different than everybody else.”_

_“How so?”_

Oh, he just had to ask, didn’t he?

Ginny bit her lip, unaccountably nervous even though she knew Tom would never judge her. Not only did he not have room to judge her, being nothing but a book and all, but he was also very patient and kind even beneath his dry wit. Tom always listened, no matter how silly or stupid it sounded, and he always listened seriously as if Ginny’s problems were just as important as everyone else’s.

If Tom was a real person she imagined that she could walk up to him at any time of the day, no matter who he was with, and he’d make time for her with that crooked smile that pretended to be so much more smug than it actually was.

Was it strange, how Ginny both wished he was real and wished he could stay a notebook forever? If he was real, then Ginny could actually see him, she could do more than just imagine the expressions he wore. On the other hand, if he was real, then he wouldn’t just belong to Ginny, he’d belong to the world.

More than anything, she cherished the fact that she could keep him all to herself.

Still, that gave her an idea, _“Hey Tom, what were you like?”_

_“Are you avoiding the question, Ginny?”_ Tom asked in turn.

Ginny frowned, _“No, well, yes—but seriously, what were you like, when you were human, I mean?”_

_“Why don’t you tell me?”_ Tom asked, _“After weeks of talking I’d think you’d have a pretty good idea of what I was like.”_

_“No, I mean, what did you look like?”_ Ginny quickly scribbled.

_“Tall, dark, and handsome.”_

Sometimes, Tom remembered that for all that he was almost perfect, his ego was also unbelievable. Ginny just couldn’t believe she also found his overwhelming confidence a charming quality rather than obnoxious.

_“Seriously, Tom.”_

_“Seriously, I was Hogwarts’ unrivaled teenage heart throb. It was the great tragedy of the school that I refused to either get myself a girlfriend or crawl out of the closet.”_

_“Huh?”_ Ginny wrote, because… She wasn’t sure she understood what that last part was even supposed to mean, what would Tom be doing in a closet?

_“Idiom, sorry, they just pop out sometimes,”_ he said, not explaining what that was supposed to mean either or why they would just pop out, _“I meant that half the school was convinced the only reason I didn’t have a girlfriend was because I was secretly a homosexual.”_

_“HUH?!”_

Ginny wasn’t entirely sure what homosexual meant, but she was pretty sure Tom was talking about boys who liked other boys or girls who liked other girls. Ginny found herself flushing terribly, wondering if Tom somehow—

_“Ginny, try not to be so close minded.”_ Tom lazily chided her, _“Had the love of my life been a man I would have married her regardless.”_

_“No, no it’s not that!”_ Ginny hastily scrawled, _“I just—With you being a book and all I just never thought about, you know, your love life.”_

_“I told you, I wasn’t always a book,”_ Tom scribbled, and here Ginny swore she could read mild irritation in each letter, _“Look, if you really want a good idea there should be a photograph or two in the trophy room. You can—”_

_“I like Ellie Potter!”_ Ginny wrote over his words.

They stayed on the page, right there in big, black, ugly letters for everyone in the world to read. Ginny couldn’t breath, couldn’t move, until they slowly started to fade into the page.

And then for far too long the page was empty.

Her heart was pounding, beating so fast she thought it’d jump right out of her chest. Suddenly she thought that this was it, Tom would stop talking to her. He’d be disgusted, like everyone else would be if they found out that Ginny liked Ellie Potter a bit more than everyone else did.

Like when she realized that Ginny was different than everyone else, that when Ginny said she liked Ellie Potter she didn’t mean it the way her other peers did, that they didn’t think Ellie Potter was beautiful the way Ginny did.

Finally, _“Good, you’ve finally admitted it.”_

Ginny laughed, hastily stifling her giggles in her hands. She wanted to write something, no wanted to say something, but she couldn’t move her hands without everyone waking up and seeing her.

_“Ginny, would you like to speak face to face?”_

Ginny removed one hand carefully, then the other, and wrote back, _“What’s that mean?”_

_“I mean that I’m a little more than a notebook,”_ Tom wrote, _“And if you trust me, if you want to, I can show you what my world looks like. You can see what I really look like.”_

The words faded quickly, almost before Ginny could read them, and replaced with a single plea, _“But you have to trust me.”_

Why did he even ask? Ginny wondered with a smile. Didn’t he know, couldn’t he guess what he meant to Ginny? And now, after he’d heard and what he’d said…

Just what did he think Ginny was anyway?

_“Of course I trust you.”_

* * *

He really was beautiful.

Tall, dark, and handsome just like he’d claimed.

He was taller than her brothers, taller than most, with curling dark hair, pale skin, and bright pale blue eyes. He was dressed in Slytherin robes, a prefect badge glinting in the fire light. And his smile…

His smile was just what Ginny had imagined.

She looked around at their surroundings, “Is this the Slytherin common room?”

It wasn’t half bad. Everything was green and silver, but richly furnished, the chairs each looking comfortable in front of the warm glow of the fire.

Ginny had expected some kind of evil dungeon, filled with ancient dark artifacts, mysterious silver instruments, and a few torture devices. This though, it just looked like a sliver version of the Gryffindor comm room.

She wondered if that said something about the houses, that no matter what anyone said, they really weren’t supposed to be that different.

“Yes,” Tom said with a fond smile, “At least, the Slytherin common room as of fifty years ago. Though I imagine the decoration hasn’t changed all that much.”

He motioned her towards a chair, “Come, sit, we have much to discuss.”

Ginny walked over to the chair, but it felt like she floated over towards it. Was this really happening? Had Ginny just jumped into the notebook, into Tom Riddle’s memories or else his mind, just like that?

As soon as she sat an ornately carved table appeared out of thin air. A white tablecloth fluttered down over it, soon joined by a vase of flowers, and a full set of china dishware. When Tom reached the table, he poured the pair of them cups of tea from a single pot.

“An old and dear friend of mine was very fond of tea for just about every occasion,” he explained as he passed her a cup, “I think it wasn’t so much the tea or even the food but the atmosphere that she liked.”

He smiled to himself as he poured his own cup and set it down on a small plate in front of him, “Pity, I never appreciated it much at the time. Only in her absence, inside here, did I start picking up all her old habits.”

Finally, Tom sat down across from her, looked her in the eye and noted, “So, you like Ellie Potter a bit more than everyone else likes Ellie Potter, is that it, Ginny?”

Ginny flushed desperately and fidgeted beneath his gaze. He was so… Intimidating looking, it wasn’t that he looked scary or anything, but he was so pretty he was hard to stare at directly.

More, there was something about his eyes, so light they were almost colorless. When they focused on you they felt a little too seeing, a little too knowing, like they cut through right to Ginny’s heart.

“Love’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Tom said kindly.

“I just—” Ginny stopped, tried not to mumble the words even as she stared down at her tea, the safest place to look, “I don’t even know her. I mean, sure, I read all the books about her but—”

“Sometimes it’s like that. Sometimes all you need is to look at them once and you know,” Tom mused, “Honestly, I’m a little envious.”

“Envious?!” Ginny blurted, finally looking up from the table.

He didn’t look embarrassed though, he didn’t even take back his words, instead he smiled with a strange and almost sad fondness. Like he was thinking of a very dear memory that he would never get back again.

“When I was—When I was real, human, I wasted so much time. In fact, I wasted nearly all of it, and all because I was too proud and too dense to realize it.”

Here his smile turned a little bitter, surprisingly self-deprecating, “Of course, I was very young, much too young for such things, but fate is rarely kind enough to deliver things in a timely manner.”

“You mean like how Ellie’s a year older than I am and is in Default?”

“I suppose you could say that,” Tom said

Ginny wasn’t entirely sure she understood what he meant, or what he was even talking about, but at least she seemed to have the right idea.

“Hey, but—What about the other you?” Ginny asked.

“What about the other me?” he asked. Ginny blinked, she wasn’t sure, but for a moment she could have sworn there was some edge of hostility in his voice.

“You’re just an impression, right?” Ginny asked, “So, maybe the real you figured it out and stopped wasting—”

“I’m afraid not,” Tom interjected with a forced smile, “You see, she was a few years older than me, and when I left for Hogwarts she disappeared. After I went to school, I never saw her again.”

“Oh,” Ginny said slowly, not quite sure what else to say.

Finally, swallowing some tea and gathering her courage, Ginny asked, “She was a muggle, then?”  
  


“Oh, lord no,” Tom said, “No, she was more talented than anyone I’ve ever heard of.”

“Not more talented than Ellie Potter,” Ginny corrected with a grin.

“Well, not all of us have an opportunity to blow up the most powerful dark lord of the age as a toddler,” he noted drily, looking very unamused which just caused Ginny to grin harder.

He sighed and smiled, “Regardless, she was far more powerful than me, I remember how much I hated that. When I first met her, I wanted to smash her face in just for daring to be better than I was.”

Ginny giggled, ignoring Tom’s raised eyebrows towards her, “Oh, I’d never want to beat Ellie up.”

First, Ginny knew she wouldn’t, couldn’t, win that fight. Second, she’d probably be too dazed just from watching Ellie in the moment to even think of fighting her. Ginny could just imagine it, Ellie’s hair coming unbound from a braid or pony tail, floating off behind her as she moved forward with grace and cool confidence.

“Was she pretty?” Ginny asked.

Tom considered that for a second before responding, “Yes and no.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ginny asked.

“She was probably around your age when we met, maybe a few years older, and she wasn’t what would be traditionally considered attractive at that age,” he said, eyes lost in memory as one finger idly traced a circle on the table cloth, “She was caught in adolescence, not quite a girl but not quite a woman either.”

“She was too small, too lean, to be a woman. She had no curves yet, no height, just a slight thinness about her waist. As for a girl, she was too wild looking to be anything anyone could consider cute. She had the curls, she even had the smile, but her eyes and her face betrayed her.”

He paused as he looked over at Ginny, “It suited her though, somehow, she never looked unnatural despite how unnatural she was. So, yes, I always imagined she’d have grown up to be very pretty.”

Ginny considered, that, wondered if Ellie Potter looked unnatural or else cute. Cute wasn’t really the word Ginny would use, even having glimpsed her, but it was true that little girls were generally supposed to be cute rather than beautiful. Beautiful was something you were supposed to grow into, something that came with age and wisdom.

Except, the girl who lived was small, she had thick curly red hair, good skin, and Ginny had even seen her bright sunny smile. So, shouldn’t she look cute? Still, like Tom said, that wasn’t the right word and Ginny had never thought about it that way.

“Oh, it’s no good,” Ginny said, “I can’t picture it.”

“Well, there’s no real need to,” Tom said, “It was a long time ago and I haven’t seen her in ages. Besides, I brought you here to talk about you, not about me.”

“Well, yeah,” Ginny complained, “But now that you’ve started you can’t just stop there.”

“I don’t see why not—” Tom tried to say but Ginny wouldn’t let him.

“Because that’s so depressing! That’d be like—Like if I never really talk to Ellie, like I just see her, never work up the courage, and then something happens to her and I never see her again. You have to show me what she looked like!”

Tom sighed, “Oh alright, I suppose there’s no harm.”

He waved a hand idly. Only, instead of summoning a photo or portrait like Ginny would have expected a third, empty, chair appeared at their table. Before Ginny could blink it was filled by a little girl who, just like Tom had promised, was maybe a year or so older than Ginny.

Except, there was one thing Tom had artfully forgotten to mention.

“That’s her!” Ginny screamed at the girl, who was now blinking at Ginny in wide-eyed alarm and confusion, “That’s Ellie Potter!”

Tom did a double take, looked between the girl and Ginny, “That’s Ellie Potter?”

It really was her though! Every detail was right on, or close enough. Ginny couldn’t tell, but this version might be a little taller, a little broader in the shoulders, but otherwise it was an exact match. The exact shade of her eyes, the way her hair curled, her wrists and fingers, everything Ginny had glimpsed right in front of her.

Ginny glared over at Tom, “Is this some kind of a joke?!”

“No, no—” Tom said, for once oddly flustered, “I—Are you sure this is what Ellie Potter looks like?”

“Positive!” Ginny cried out, “If anyone knows what the girl-who-lived looks like it’s me!”

Ginny lifted the girl’s hand, ignoring the way Ellie’s doppelganger stiffened at Ginny’s forceful touch, “You even got the fingernails right!”

“Blew up the dark lord as a toddler…” Tom muttered to himself, “The greatest witch of the entire age… Ellie Potter—”

“Eleanor Lily Potter!” Ginny finished for him, hands on her hips, just daring him to try and excuse himself out of this.

“Her middle name was Lily?!”

Men, honestly, Ginny could not even deal, “That’s all you have to say?!”

He considered the girl for a moment, then smiled at Ginny, “Well, you probably see Ellie because that’s how she would look to you.”

“Can you repeat that?” Ginny asked dully.

“The way I saw her is the way you see Ellie Potter. We’re inside the mind, Ginny, sitting on a bridge between you and I. So, some things get translated as metaphors. The way she looks doesn’t matter, it’s the way we feel about her.”

“Oh,” Ginny said, deflating for a moment, “Oh, I guess that makes sense.”

“That said,” Tom said with a grin, “This is a priceless opportunity.”

“It is?” Ginny asked dubiously, trying and failing not to look at Ellie sitting so close next to her (so close that Ginny could touch her, was touching her, could kiss her, oh Merlin—)

“Sure,” Tom said, “After all, I’ve just given you something to practice with.”

If anyone asked, that was the moment Ginny died. Now, if being able to practice anything she wanted to with a fake Ellie Potter was hell or heaven, that Ginny would leave for someone else to decide.

All that mattered was, by the time she spluttered awake back in the real world, she was still blushing.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a fine Saturday in September, a little on the chilly side, but still early in the season and for once Ginny was feeling fine.

Ginny was sitting in a small cohort of Gryffindor who had come out to watch one of the first matches of the season. The highly anticipated Slytherin and Default match. It was supposed to be a battle of the ages between the loaded Slytherin team all on newly purchased Nimbus Two Thousands with Malfoy’s blood money and Ellie Potter’s rag tag gang comprised of entirely first and second year expatriates on whatever brooms they’d managed to lift off Madame Hooch.

In any other circumstance, they’d expect Slytherin to absolutely slaughter, even after having compromised the team and placed second year Malfoy as Seeker. Default didn’t even have enough bloody players to field a competitive team, and none of them had any experience on a broom let alone in quidditch. Second years Crabbe and Goyal were twice the size of the largest Default player!

But in this circumstance, Default wasn’t just any underdog team, it was an underdog team featuring none other than Eleanor Lily Potter as captain. Ellie Potter, not only striving for victory, but facing off against her old house in a showdown of the ages.

That had been enough to bring out quidditch enthusiasts and Ellie Potter fanatics from every house in the school. As for Ginny, well, not only was she a die hard fan of quidditch but also found the idea of Ellie Potter on a broom in full quidditch gear…

Well, let’s just say Ginny thought about that image quite a lot.

She wished, not for the first time, that Tom could be here sitting with her in the stands. Of course, if he were real, he’d probably have to go sit with the Slytherins just like their current prefect was doing. Still, Ginny could imagine him sitting here beside her, looking absolutely bored out of his mind, but trying to be supportive just the same.

Ginny had told him all about watching the match, about how she was going to see Ellie Potter play Seeker for the first time, and he’d been less than impressed.

Apparently, Tom M. Riddle had never quite gotten sports, even when he’d been a real boy.

Still, it was a good break from studying, from everything, and a nice excuse to get outside for a little while and clear her head. Ginny… She hadn’t been feeling well recently. She didn’t know when it started, exactly, but she’d started waking up every morning utterly exhausted. Like she’d spent every nice tossing and turning, and sure, maybe she stayed up a little late talking to Tom but she swore she was sleeping like a log.

It was so bad that she’d started drifting off in class. McGonagall had chewed her out good the other day…

Except, no, sometimes it was like Ginny drifted off but she didn’t actually fall asleep. Her eyes would flutter, her vision would tunnel, and then she’d blink and instead of laying face down on her desk she’d look up and the class would be over with her notes written for her.

It was like, every once in a while, Ginny’s body went and moved a long without her while Ginny went… She didn’t know, somewhere else she supposed.

She probably should see Madame Pomfrey, but it was embarrassing and probably just happened because she stayed up a little too late most nights talking to a magic book. That would just give the nurse a reason to nick the diary and never give it back, saying that it was clearly bad for Ginny’s health or something.

  
Besides, if Ginny could write notes in her sleep then she wasn’t going to complain. Plus, it wasn’t like it happened all the time or even that often. Ginny just needed some fresh air to clear her head, and if Ellie Potter on a broom came with it…

“There she is!” Ginny exclaimed to Ron, who, as always, was pretending she hadn’t invited herself to sit with him and his friends.

“Bloody hell,” said Dean with a whistle, “There she blows.”

“They don’t even have uniforms!” Seamus added.

Ginny wanted to hit him, except he was sort of right, they really didn’t. The team was technically wearing regulation quidditch robes, but it was like they couldn’t decide on colors so had just dumped an entire rainbow of paint on each.

No two uniforms matched in either colors or patterns and each was as eye watering as the last, with colors so bright that Ginny had to squint just to get a good look at them without going blind. Ginny had figured Default’s house colors were supposed to be gray and maybe black or white, not every flavor bean.

The team trailed out onto the field looking neither determined, concerned, embarrassed, or even apprehensive. They walked right past the hovering Slytherin team, one by one and—

“What are they doing?” Ginny asked.

No one answered, they didn’t need to, everyone besides Ellie Potter herself sat down on the bench. The entire Default team except one player, already too few players as is, had just benched itself.

“Can they do that?” Dean asked Ron, ignoring Ginny’s very presence.

Ron opened closed his mouth like a fish, leaving Ginny to save the day, “Technically, the only required player in any match is the Seeker. So, it is legal, it’s just that she’ll have to score the points, defend her own goal, keep the beaters off her own back, and catch the snitch.”

In other words, Ellie Potter would have to play about eleven different positions all by herself. Either this was going to be the best match Ginny had ever seen or—

Or Ginny didn’t even want to think about how this was going to play out.

“Oi, Ginny,” Ron barked, glaring over his shoulder at her, “What are you sitting here for anyway? Don’t you have your own friends to sit next to?”

Ginny flushed and glared, “Shut it, Ron, can I help that you have the best bloody seats in the house?”  
  


Thank Merlin he did though, because the truth was that Ginny had nowhere else to sit.

Even if she’d wanted to sit with the other Gryffindor girls in her year, none of them were here, none of them cared about quidditch. When Ginny had first arrived in the dorm and hung up her Harpies poster one of them had asked if Ginny couldn’t take it down as it ‘ruined the aesthetic’.

But then again, even if they were here, Ginny wouldn’t sit with them.

“Hey, look, it’s starting!” Ginny said, pointing and distracting her brother.

Ellie mounted her broom with a great, shuddering, sigh and slowly rose into the air. Just like Ginny had imagined, her hair floated behind her, barely contained in a single hair tie, and even flushed with embarrassment she looked—

Ginny could almost die.

They hovered there, Ellie alone against eleven older and far more experienced players. Next to her, Ron started to snigger. Ginny elbowed him in the stomach, but he just kept laughing, “Oh, she looks so stupid.”

“Yeah, try saying that to her face,” Seamus asked with a small laugh, “We’ll see what your face looks like after she’s done with you.”

“Oh, come off it, Seamus,” Ron said, “Just look at her.”

Seamus and Dean looked then, slowly at first, reluctantly, they started sniggering too. Soon it seemed like the entire stands, all houses, were just barely holding in the laughter as they watched Ellie float up there alone.

Even the Slytherins on their brooms were giving her hell up there as they pointed down at the benched Default players.

“Come on, Ellie,” Ginny said under her breath, “Give them hell.”

And then just like that, she did.

She lifted a single hand and all eleven of the Slytherin Nimbus Two-Thousands, shiny and new, snapped in half. The Slytherin team hurtled to the ground, defenseless whiles the bludgers and quaffles crashed into the grass like meteors, only to keep moving wildly and dig trenches into the stands.

And, with her hand still outstretched, the golden snitch flew right into it without Ellie having flown an inch.

Nobody said a word.

And then, “Disqualified! Default loses by disqualification!”

Ginny winced, unable to help herself, but Ellie didn’t even seem to care as she floated back down to pitch. Even as her team screamed at her and Madame Hooch handed her a red card she stood there in a listless daze, still holding the snitch, as if even she wasn’t quite sure what had just happened.

She guessed Ellie just didn’t care that much about quidditch, Ginny thought with a sigh. Still, at least she’d kicked Slytherin ass, that had to count for something.

Ginny sighed as she watched Ellie disappear back into the female locker room. She’d been hoping Ellie would stick around, that the game might last a little longer, and that Ginny would have a chance to talk about something she knew really well.

Talking to Ellie Potter about Ellie Potter was just weird and creepy but Ginny could always talk to her about quidditch.

Ron and his friends were already leaving, as was most the audience, with loud comments of what a waste of a match that had been and how Default shouldn’t even have a quidditch team. Ginny stayed behind, she could try anyway, she’d been practicing with Tom and—

And it was like she was glued to the stands.

“Forget it,” Ginny muttered to herself, she’d get there, she’d build up her nerve and try again when Ellie hadn’t just lost to her old house. She just—She had to calm down, think, and keep her cool.

There was still plenty of time, it was only September.

As she walked Ginny pulled out the notebook and immediately started writing, _“She lost.”_

Tom didn’t need any context, he’d heard more than enough the night before, and Ginny could almost imagine him crowing with delight, _“Oh, the girl-who-lived losing at anything? I thought you said that wasn’t possible.”_

Ginny navigated her way expertly passed other students, even with her nose in the diary, and weaved her way out of the stadium and back towards the castle, _“Well, I mean technically she lost, but I don’t think Slytherin’s exactly looking forward to a rematch either.”_

_“How does one technically lose?”_

Ginny grinned, _“She destroyed Slytherin’s brooms, the bludgers and quaffles, and caught the snitch in two seconds by herself. Default got disqualified and I’m pretty sure they have to forfeit their next game.”_

If you had to pick a way to lose a game, then that wasn’t a bad one.

_“But I also get the feeling she doesn’t, you know, like quidditch all that much,”_ Ginny wrote with some regret, Ellie liking quidditch would have made things so much easier.

Ginny stepped into the castle and made her way to the moving staircase. She had homework, she supposed she should get down to that but…

_“Hey, Tom, you know that thing you said about—”_ Ginny cut herself off, no, she couldn’t write it. She just couldn’t.

By the time she made it around the corner of one staircase to the next he’d already replied, _“You’re going to have to finish your sentences Ginny.”_

Oh, why did he always make her say it out loud?

_“You know, inside the diary, about, you know…”_ Ginny felt like she was physically bracing herself even as she stepped, preparing for impact as she wrote the word that would damn her forever, _“Practice?”_

It took him two more staircases to respond then, _“Oh, lost your nerve, did you?”_

_“Shut up, Tom!”_

_“That’s alright, Ginny, it’s what I’m here for,”_ she could almost imagine him laughing at her, _“When I’m done with you, Ellie Potter will be stumbling over herself trying to make your acquaintance.”_

Ginny doubted that, but she guessed it was nice of him to say. Really, anything was better than what Ginny had currently amounted to. She hadn’t even managed to get close enough to stutter at the girl. Ginny was absolutely certain that Ellie Potter had no idea she even existed, except, at best as Ron Weasley’s little sister.

Ginny desperately needed Tom’s help.

With a sigh she stepped into the common room, climbed the tower stairs to her dorm, and kicked off her shoes. As expected, she was the only one in here. Everyone else would still be hanging out with friends, talking about the lackluster match, doing homework, or doing anything besides spending the day indoors.

Which made it the perfect place for Ginny to sneak off into the diary and pretend she was just taking a very long nap.

_“You ready?”_ Tom had written, waiting for her response.

_“Let’s do this.”_

And just like that she found herself drawn back into the notebook. It wasn’t really a physical sensation, instead, it felt almost like when you were so exhausted that your body forced you into sleep. Ginny’s head grew heavy, her eyes closed, and she pitched forward only instead of hitting the bed she kept falling down and down until she was in a different common room.

“Tom!” Ginny cried out, picking herself up off the floor.

“Hello to you too,” Tom said with a smile, offering her a hand, “It’s been a while.”

  
Ginny giggled, because it really hadn’t. Ginny could barely go an hour without writing something to Tom. As for being in the diary, it’d only been a few days, and that was because it was hard to find a time and place where someone wouldn’t interrupt her. Plus, Ginny had to get her homework done sometime.

“Did you miss me?” Ginny asked with a self-assured grin, but he hardly looked embarrassed.

“Of course,” Tom said, “What would I do without my red headed window to the outside world?”

He walked towards the chairs again, setting up the table, tea, and summoning Ellie Potter with a practiced grace. Ginny stayed where she was, staring after him, suddenly at a loss for words.

“Is that what I am?” Ginny finally asked.

“Hm?” Tom asked, finally looking back at her, “Oh, Ginny, it was just a joke—”

Ginny just kept staring at him though, and she suddenly realized how small the common room really was, how it seemed too small for just one person, “Do you… Do you even like it in here?”

“What are you talking about?” he asked with an exasperated sigh as he took a seat, pouring himself some tea. He looked as if Ginny was just being silly, asking him something whose meaning he couldn’t get at, like none of this really mattered.

“This place, the common room, the diary—”

“Well, it isn’t always a common room,” Tom drawled, with a snap of his fingers the setting changed, leaving only Ginny, Tom, Ellie Potter, the chairs, and the table.

Ginny stumbled forward, trying to get some bearing on her new surroundings. They were in a strange obsidian building, not muggle nor wizard, but something entirely alien.

Outside the window was a glittering silver city, bright neon signs glinting like crystals throughout the twilight. Cars without wheels whizzed by through the air like dad’s Ford Angelina, passengers obscured behind thick dark glass.

Inside, she and Tom were now in some kind of internal courtyard. One filled with strange plants, and muggle creatures that watched them unnaturally, making no move either to harm them or to scurry away.

With another snap of his fingers the Slytherin common room returned, “But I figured you’d be more comfortable with something a little more familiar. Unfortunately, as I’ve never seen Gryffindor’s common room, Slytherin’s the best I can do.”

Ginny slowly made her way over to her seat, watching her surroundings warily for any sudden shifts, “Yeah, but—”

“But what?” Tom asked as Ginny sat in her seat and accepted a cup of tea from the fake Ellie.

“Don’t you get tired of being a book?” Ginny asked.

He laughed, a bright merry sound as if Ginny had just told the greatest joke, “Oh Ginny, haven’t you forgotten something important?”

He smiled kindly at her, “I’m just a memory Ginny. I talk about being a man, about memories and what it would have been like to move past sixteen, but I’m not really human. I’m just an impression of someone, nothing more.”

“You seem pretty real to me,” Ginny mumbled into her tea.

“I’ll take that as a very high compliment,” Tom said, “I’m sure, if my creator was here, he’d be quite pleased to hear that he made something so very life like.”

“Still,” Ginny said, and motioned all around them, “You can’t want to be stuck here, even if you’re not really a person. Don’t you get bored?”

“Bored?” he asked, as if he wasn’t quite sure what the word meant, “I suppose I could get bored, but then, I am only limited by the limits of my own imagination.”

He took a sip of his tea, “Perhaps, if the true Tom Riddle were stuck in here, then he might get bored and might wish for escape. But the fact remains that you’re projecting onto me, Ginny, I’m quite comfortable exactly where I am.”

Ginny frowned, tried to think of something, anything to say to that… She didn’t think Tom was lying, exactly, except she knew he couldn’t really be happy here. Ginny would go mad in minutes if she was stuck in the Gryffindor common room forever.

Ginny’s eye caught Ellie’s and then she pointed, “What about her?”

“What about her?” Tom asked, eyebrow raised.

Ginny tried to remind herself about what Tom said, that even though she saw Ellie Potter sitting there he saw someone much different, someone lost to the flow of time. Regardless, Ginny knew how she would feel about all of this, about her, if she was stuck in a book, “Don’t you want to find her?”

He didn’t answer right away, paused for a second, then said, “Ginny, she’d be ancient by now and—”

“And if you keep waiting, she’ll be dead!” Ginny screamed.

The fake Ellie looked over at Tom, an amused smile tugging at those perfect lips, “She’s got you good there, Tom.”

“Shut up, Lily,” Tom said, waving a hand as if to dismiss what Ellie, his Lily, had just said.

“Look, Ginny, it’s fine,” Tom said with a longsuffering sigh, “Most would argue that any amount of life or memory I have is something I should be grateful for. I am, after all, just a book at heart.”

“Yeah but—”

“Ginny, please, didn’t you come her for a reason?” he asked, nodding towards Ellie Potter who looked over at Ginny with a grin.

“I can’t say she’s my type, but she’s cute,” Ellie said with a smile, “I think she can grow on me.”

“Your type?!” Ginny asked, attention focused entirely on the smiling Ellie, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ellie lifted one of Ginny’s hand and held it in hers, ignoring the way Ginny’s hair stood on end at the direct content, “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I just always thought I’d end up with someone a little taller and more masculine. Someone tall, dark, and handsome, I suppose.”

Ginny’s eyes drifted reluctantly over to the grinning Tom Riddle watching the pair of them, “Like Tom?”

Ellie grinned back at Ginny, a blinding smile with no reservations, “Yeah, like Tom!”

Ginny glared over at Tom who looked entirely too remorseless to even be real, “You cad.”

“It wouldn’t be much practice if it wasn’t a challenge,” Tom said with a small laugh, “Besides, you must have some competition in Hogwarts.”

Ginny grimaced, “I don’t know about that.”

Sure, Ginny guessed there was Default, but for all that they seemed close there was still a wall between them and Ellie. Most of them seemed mad at her all the time, frustrated and yelling at breakfast, or else ignoring her completely. Ginny wasn’t even sure Granger ever liked Ellie, she just seemed to hate everyone else a little more.

Luna seemed to get along with her best, but even then, Ellie looked at Luna more like an adorable mascot than a friend Ellie could really rely on.

Ginny leaned on one hand, “I guess there’s that Rabbitson bloke.”

Lepur Rabbitson and Ellie seemed to share some kind of a strong bond. They say that he was an Albanian refugee that ran straight to Ellie Potter and that they’d been inseparable since before the start of last year when he’d accompanied her everywhere as a rabbit animagus.

That said, he had the personality of a lump of lead, and Ginny didn’t even think she’d heard him say a single word let alone a sentence. Plus, Ellie seemed to take great pleasure in dumping him on Luna and would tell people she only hung out with him so he ‘didn’t eat Scotland’.

So even if he was too pretty to be real, Ginny was pretty sure that Ellie wasn’t interested even if the rest of the school was.

There could be someone Ginny hadn’t guessed, after all, it wasn’t like she actually saw much of Ellie Potter but—

It was just so hard to picture her infatuated with anybody. Maybe that was just Ginny’s imagination talking, but she just couldn’t see it. Ginny’s biggest obstacle wasn’t a boy but Ellie Potter herself.

“Are you telling me the great Ellie Potter has no admirers?” Tom asked.

“Well, sure, I mean—” Ginny paused, “Well, maybe not as many as you’d think.”

Supposedly, Ginny’s fellow first year Colin Creevey stalked her around with his muggle camera, but otherwise Ellie Potter wasn’t nearly as popular as you might think. The way Ron said it, she was just too violent and obnoxious to be likeable. If she was just a little more normal, then sure, but when she was liable to shake you down for lunch money then she lost a lot of appeal.

“Besides,” he’d added with a sniff, “Who wants to be with a girl that much more powerful than you?”

Ginny had punched him in the arm, even though she was pretty sure a lot of guys at Hogwarts had a similar idea. It was all well and good to want to marry a powerful wizard, but if your wife was more powerful than you, then they said you were in for a life of pain and misery.

Ginny sighed, eyed the fake Ellie still smiling at her, “But my real point is that I don’t think Ellie likes anybody like that.”

“Well, so much the better for you,” Tom said with a smile, as if Ginny wasn’t in the piles and piles of other people Ellie Potter must have overlooked.

Ginny grimaced and looked back over at Ellie. Ellie stared at her, waiting for her with a patient smile that she’d never directed at Ginny in real life.

Ginny looked desperately back at Tom, “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” Tom reassured her, “Pretend I’m not here.”

“That’s not the problem!” Ginny said.

“Do you need a demonstration?” Tom asked drily, and before Ginny could say that no, she did not need a demonstration, he turned towards Ellie.

“Ellie,” Tom said with that charming, perfect, smile that made Ginny want to punch his teeth in, “I’m Tom Riddle, I know we’ve never met, but I just wanted—”

Ellie’s smile faltered, then faded, and she said slowly, “Good God, Tom, you’re out of practice.”

Ginny stifled a giggle, tried to hide her smile behind her hand, as she watched Tom’s face shift from pleasant charm to poorly hidden surprise.

“Come again?” Tom asked.

“You sound like such a creep,” Ellie said, leaning away from him, looking him up and down and taking in every inch of him, “You’re sixteen, I’m twelve, this conversation doesn’t happen.”

“Lily,” he hissed, “I am trying to make a point here—”

“Hey, you’re the one that made me, not the other way around!” Ellie said, crossing her arms and glaring at him, “If I think your introduction makes you sound like a creep then you’re the one who secretly thinks it but can’t admit it.”

Ginny couldn’t stop it, her giggles transformed into full blown laughter, not even hidden by her hand anymore. Merlin, she just couldn’t stop though.

“Then how would you prefer I introduce myself!” Tom hissed.

“I don’t know, you’re a prefect, why don’t you give me detention?” Ellie asked, inspecting her fingernails while lifting her cup of tea.

“Isn’t that creepier?!” Tom asked.

“Since it gives you an actual context to talk to me, no, it’s shockingly not,” Ellie said, before drawling, “Of course, if detention is you, me, and the dungeon where you spank me and tell me what a naughty girl I’ve been, that’s a different story.”

Ginny couldn’t breathe, she was wheezing too hard.

“Shouldn’t have spent all those decades fantasizing about dungeon porn, Tom, it always comes to bite you in the ass,” Ellie chided, actually going so far as to tsk at Tom, sounding just like Percy when he was on a power trip, “Sometimes literally.”

Ginny fell out of her chair, collapsed onto the Slytherin carpet, shaking with the force of her own laughter.

“Are you quite finished?” Tom asked, and Ginny nodded, breathing in deeply to get rid of the last of the laughter.

He held out a hand and helped her find the chair again. When she sat back into it, collapsed really, he gave her a knowing look, “See, it can’t possibly go that badly.”

Ginny stiffened, looked back over at Ellie still sipping her tea, and realized that this must mean it’s her turn.

“Oh hell,” Ginny said to herself, blanching at the thought of what Ellie might say to her if that’s what she’d had to say to charming Tom Riddle.

“You’re eleven, Ginny,” Tom reassured her, “Even if you’re a girl, at least you’re in the right age bracket.”

Ginny looked at Ellie then back at Tom, “Can you—Can you give us some space?”

“Not really,” he said, “You’re in my notebook, Ginny.”

“Look, I can’t do this with you here,” Ginny said, flushing desperately as she rubbed the back of her head, “You’ll just laugh at me and—”

“Even if you laughed at my humiliation and suffering,” Tom reminded her haughtily, “I am not low enough to ever laugh at yours.”

Ginny believed that, he was right, he really was a much better person than she was. He’d never laugh at her even the way Ginny had just laughed at him. He really was a great friend.

Ginny nodded and prepared herself. She took a deep breath, looked over at the fake Ellie, and said, “Hi Ellie, I’m Ginny Weasley, I just saw your quidditch match today and—”

And Ginny’s mind went perfectly blank, it was like she’d only made it that far into the sentence and the rest of it just disappeared. Suddenly, she couldn’t think of anything to say, worse she couldn’t even remember what she’d just said. She was just sitting there with her mouth hanging open like a goldfish.

Fake Ellie looked over at Tom, a look of concern on her face as she noted, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

Ginny gasped for air and flailed, desperately trying to maintain her balance as she stumbled forward. Glancing around, Ginny noticed that she wasn’t in her room anymore. Instead she was standing in a corridor. It looked like the corridor right out of the Great Hall.

The light had changed, it’d been early morning when Ginny had gotten to the dorm, remarkably early since the quidditch game had only lasted two seconds. It was twilight now though, the orange light seeping in through the stained-glass windows and into the hall.

Had she really been in the diary all that time?

Except, what was she doing here? Had she walked here somehow?

Ginny glanced down at her hands then paused. The notebook wasn’t there, she’d probably left it upstairs in her room, but her hands… Her hands were covered in blood. Ginny hastily wiped them on her pants, ignoring the feeling of the stains forming on the dark material.

Then she desperately started patting down her head, her torso, and anywhere she could think of. She didn’t feel injured, nothing hurt or ached, but she didn’t feel exactly right either. She felt lightheaded, like she was floating rather than just standing there, and at any moment she might tip over and fall on her face.

Everything felt faded and fuzzy, she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here, couldn’t remember anything except the inside of the notebook. She had gone to the dorm, hadn’t she? She wouldn’t have just plopped down right outside the Great Hall, would she?  
  


Ginny rubbed at her head, moving forward, but then she bumped into someone’s back.

Someone shrieked, and Ginny looked up to stare in horror at the wall. Mrs. Norris, Filch’s cat, stood unnaturally still with hair raised on end hissing at some unknown intruder. Beside her were piles of dead, headless, roosters.

Students gathered in from all around, summoned by the shriek, and soon a thick mob was formed around the scene. Ginny stood at its front, mouth dry and hands shaking, even as first Filch appeared to accuse each and every one of them, and then prefects and professors appeared to clear the scene.

Ginny, even as she was ushered back to the tower, couldn’t help but turn and stare. It wasn’t the cat though or the chickens that she looked at, instead it was the wall and the words.

On the wall, written in still dripping blood, were the words, “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware.”


	4. Chapter 4

Ginny didn’t waste time breaking the diary, Tom, out.

She normally tried not to write with so many people around. It wasn’t that she thought it’d look weird, exactly, but she had this terrible feeling someone would look over her shoulder and realize that Ginny’s diary wasn’t your usual diary. Maybe they’d look, they’d see him responding back, and they’d take him away from her where she’d never find him again.

As far as her dorm mates, her house mates, everyone in this school Ginny didn’t have a diary.

Tonight though it didn’t matter, keeping her privacy and protecting Tom was an after thought, because everything had changed. Everyone was up all night, terrified whispers flying around the common room as they talked about the chamber, what it might be, what some thought it was, and rumors passed down by grandparents.

Crawling onto her bed, desperately dipping her quill into a jar of ink, Ginny scribbled, _“Tom, something’s happened, something awful, we have to talk.”_

_“Ginny, what—”_

_“In person! I need to talk to you in person!”_

Tom didn’t say anything, she could almost feel his wariness and confusion, but thankfully he seemed to realize that Ginny was serious and things had changed. One moment Ginny was on her bed and the next she was standing in front of him in the diary.

“Ginny?” he asked carefully, eyes wide, reaching out towards her with one of his pale and perfect hands.

Ginny looked down, staggered back, even in here Ginny’s hands were covered in that blood from earlier.

She tried wiping them on her clothes again, but unlike in the Great Hall, the blood didn’t go away. Instead it stained her clothes but as soon as it smeared there more blood appeared on her hands.

“Ginny, you need to calm down,” Tom said slowly, still reaching out, but Ginny just stumbled backwards and shook her head.

“I don’t—” she shuddered, “I don’t know where it came from. There were dead roosters everywhere, someone cut their bloody heads off, and I was somehow in the great hall covered in blood that isn’t even mine—”

“Ginny!” finally his hands caught hers.

For a moment she shuddered, tried to pull away, wanting to say the blood would just get on him too.

“Look, Ginny,” he said, slowly turning her hands back over, there was no blood anymore. Suddenly, just like that, it was all gone. Like it’d all just been a dream.

Merlin, she wished it was just a dream.

She let out a final, shuddering, sigh, and slowly moved her way over to the sofa in front of the fireplace. She curled her legs up onto the couch, placed her head and hands on her knees, and stared into the fire.

“Something’s happening,” Ginny said quietly, unable to look at him, “I keep blacking out, nearly once a day now, and today… Something happened out there.”

“What happened?” Tom pressed, moving a strand of hair away from her face and tucking it behind her ear.

Ginny just shook her head, “I don’t know. I was talking to you and then, just like that, I wasn’t. I was in the great hall, but I was covered in blood, and then I turned around and there were these dead roosters. Someone went and petrified Filch’s cat even. And—”

“And?” he prompted, squeezing her shoulder in comfort.

She turned to look at him, eyes wide, fingers clenching her knees for comfort, “Tom, what’s the chamber of secrets?”

For a moment he said nothing, he just stared at her, and then his expression darkened, “What happened out there Ginny?”

“Some blighter went and wrote ‘The chamber of secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware’ on the wall in blood,” Ginny said, trying to say it like it was funny, like it was some joke of Fred and George’s that went a little too far for comfort, but she knew it wasn’t.

Tom removed his hand from her shoulder, stared into the fire, and said, “Fifty years ago, when I was in school, just before I made this notebook someone wrote that same message using the blood of Hogwarts’ roosters.”

“You mean—” Ginny said slowly.

Tom didn’t let her finish, “Legend has it that Salazar Slytherin left behind a parting gift in Hogwarts, a secret chamber beneath the castle, where some say he left a monster for his heir. Fifty years ago, after that message was written, muggle born students were petrified left and right for months. It was a madhouse, everyone was desperate and paranoid, thinking the monster could be anyone or anything. Then, of course, someone died.”

Ginny felt herself choking on her own horror, the vision of someone’s body, a student’s body where Mrs. Norris had been.

“Myrtle Warren,” Tom said quietly, “Muggle born, Ravenclaw, a few years younger than me.”

Ginny waited for him to say more, maybe more about the girl, more about the petrifications, the chamber, something. He didn’t though, just stared quietly into the fire, brooding about years and years ago.

  
“Did they catch him? I mean, the guy who wrote the message, the heir?” Ginny asked.

“I caught him,” Tom said, lacing his hands together, a dark satisfied look crossing his beautiful features, “Rubeus Hagrid had been raising an acromantula secretly within the castle.”

“Hagrid?!” Ginny asked.

“He’d always had difficulties as a student,” Tom said gravely, “His grades were poor, he had no friends to speak of, and was tormented by purebloods and muggle borns alike for his mixed heritage. The staff had previously overlooked his breeding of slightly less dangerous monsters but after the petrifications, after the murder, it was clear something had to be done.”

“But Hagrid—” Ginny started but Tom didn’t let her finish.

“He was arrested, brought before the Wizengamot, his wand was snapped, and he was expelled from Hogwarts. Out of an abundance of pity, Dumbledore hired the boy on as a groundskeeper.”

Right, he used that umbrella now, didn’t he? Groundskeeper, Ginny suddenly paled, “He’s still a groundskeeper…”

“Of course he is,” Tom said with a small, bitter, smile, “It’s not like he’s going to get hired anywhere else.”

Ginny opened her mouth, closed it, and then said, “But Hagrid?”

Ginny hadn’t met Hagrid, at least, not beyond the man guiding her to the boats. He’d seemed so nice though, Ron said he was a real stand up guy, had a penchant for breeding dangerous pets like dragons and three headed dogs but no one who would intentionally hurt a fly.

Tom just shrugged, “After he was arrested the petrifications stopped.”

“You mean you think Hagrid, as in Hagrid, is the heir of Slytherin?!” Ginny balked.

“Of course not,” Tom said dismissively, “He didn’t have to be though. Anyone can write that the chamber of secrets is open, claim to be Slytherin’s long lost heir, that doesn’t mean that he actually found and opened it. All he had to do was set loose a monster in the halls.”

“But—” Ginny tried and failed to say what she wanted to, that Hagrid was so nice, that he didn’t seem to hold a grudge against anybody. Finally, she said, “You don’t think it’s him again, do you?”

Tom shrugged, “Who knows, he’s still here which is worrying. It could be a copycat though, fifty is a nice round number, and it’s not like sentiment about muggle borns has changed all that much. If I were you, Ginny, I’d watch out in these coming months.”

“Months?!” Ginny stood, pacing back and forth, “You can’t mean we should sit back and let this happen all over again!”

“They’re not going to jail Hagrid for petrifying a cat,” Tom said with raised eyebrows.

“It’s not Hagrid!”

“Then you’d better find out who it really is before you go pointing fingers at anyone,” Tom said, throwing his hands up as if he had no idea what to do with her, “Being a book, only knowing you, I’m afraid Hagrid is my best guess.”

Ginny paced back and forth, her mind all over the place. She thought about the words, what Tom had just told her, the petrified cat, the roosters, and all the blood. She felt like she needed to calm down, sit down and think, but she couldn’t because everything was falling apart.

She didn’t know what was happening.

Ginny stopped in place, forcing herself to breathe, to collect herself while Tom watched helplessly.

No, no she wasn’t helpless, it wasn’t hopeless. It was 1992 and there was one thing that gave Ginny hope in all of this mess.

“Ellie Potter,” she said with certainty, “I need to talk to Ellie Potter.”

She looked over at him, “You need to talk to Ellie Potter. Tell her what you told me, all of it, and she’ll find out who it is and stop them!”

“Potter?!” Tom blurted, looking utterly floored and almost insulted for a moment, then held up placating hands, “Look, Ginny, we don’t even know what this is yet. Maybe it’s nothing, maybe someone heard some old urban legend from their grandfather and thought it’d be a great prank, probably some entitled Slytherin. There’s no need to—”

“What if you’re wrong?” Ginny asked, “What if it’s happening again? What if—”

“You’re jumping the gun,” Tom insisted, and at Ginny’s confused expression explained with a sigh, “Muggle idiom, sorry, what I mean to say is you’re getting ahead of yourself. There’s no need to involve anyone, not Dumbledore, and certainly not Ellie Potter.”

“But—”

“Do you really want this to be your first impression?” Tom asked.

And it would be, he knew that Ginny hadn’t worked up the nerve to talk to Ellie once. Ginny would just come in out of nowhere, screaming at her, demanding Ellie talk to her magic diary. And what if Ellie took Tom away? Would Ginny be able to say no if someone like Ellie Potter wanted a diary like that for herself?

Ginny slowly sat back down on the couch.

“There’s no need to panic yet,” Tom said, patting her on the shoulders, “I admit that dead roosters are… distressing but we have time. Someone older and wiser than you, me, or even Ellie Potter will take care of this. Isn’t that why Dumbledore’s headmaster?”

“Right,” Ginny said, yes, Dumbledore would figure it out, with or without Ginny.

As for Ginny, well, she’d look crazy no matter who she went to. Her brothers would never listen, wouldn’t even give her the time of day, so all she could do was keep an eye out and talk with Tom.

Tom Riddle, her only friend.

“You’ll be okay, Ginny,” Tom said, squeezing her shoulder, “Everything will work out.”

Ginny nodded slowly. She looked down at her hands, clean once again, and then back up at him.

“Hey, Tom?” she asked slowly, “Why would my hands be covered in blood?”

His mouth curled downwards, he squeezed her shoulder and looked past her into the fire, “I don’t know, Ginny. I don’t know.”

* * *

It didn’t get better though, for Ginny or for Hogwarts.

The blackouts, the blips, which used to be once a day for only a few minutes got longer. It seemed like Ginny spent more and more time being anyone but Ginny. Where before she might miss a class or two now it felt like she only startled awake here and there.

She’d suddenly find herself in the great hall eating lunch, standing in that depressing dungeon loo nobody liked, or hidden away in some broom closet or another. She’d have only enough time to take a bite, to stumble out into the hallway, and then she’d be gone again just like that.

She had no idea what day it was, what month it was, time passed erratically. Every time Ginny was aware of herself, she desperately checked for the time and the date. That was how Ginny found out that it wasn’t just days but weeks passing her by without her even noticing.

A blink of an eye and it was already the end of October.

The only time that time seemed to pass regularly, that she didn’t slip in and out of reality, was when she was with Tom inside the notebook.

Except Tom couldn’t explain what was happening to her.

Her meetings with he fake Ellie in the notebook disappeared, after that night, almost immediately and instead it was just Tom and Ginny again. It felt like her whole life was disappearing, slipping between her fingers, and all Tom could do was look at her in pity and ask her to get rest.

And then, after a while (or maybe after no time at all) he stopped bothering at all.

“I’m so scared, Tom,” she said, clutching at herself inside the Slytherin common room, it was the only thing she seemed to have left to say, “I don’t know what’s happening or where I am or—”

He didn’t look at her.

He never did anymore, he used to, but now he stared away from her as if he couldn’t even stand the sight of her. Like she was something diseased, something wrong, something that was wasting away in front of his eyes just like Ginny feared.

She wondered if she’d made the old Tom, the Tom who cared and smiled, up inside of her head. Maybe she’d been so desperate for a friend, for anyone, she’d imagined the whole thing when he’d always been this.

Except, no, he hadn’t always been like this.

Something had happened.

Well, that was an understatement. Those petrifications Tom had warned about were happening all over the place. Even in and out of time like Ginny was she could pick up that much. Each time she came back to the world of the living there was news of one more body found, one more victim, and more whispers that Ellie Potter must be the one behind it for all the girl’s going on about finding the heir herself. That or, perhaps, it was Hagrid just like fifty years ago.

Ginny tried to reach out to her, to find Ellie Potter herself and tell her what she knew, but every time she did the world would slip through her fingers. When she came to, Ellie was never there, always somewhere out of reach.

It wasn’t just Hogwarts though; something had happened to Tom.

The notebook had changed somewhere along the way. That feeling of serenity, endless patience and comfort, was gone. The very air was electrified, the colors brighter, and you could almost taste the excitement, anticipation, nervousness, anger, all bright jagged emotions that hinted at change. Like the notebook was teetering over a knife’s edge and the very parchment knew it was going to fall one way or another.

It was still the Slytherin common room, Tom’s Slytherin common room, but at the same time it was anything but.

And he’d changed with it.

“Tom!” she cried out, “Please help me!”

Look at me! She wanted to scream it at the top of her lungs, shake him by his shoulders and throw him at the ground, anything so he’d say something and do something. He, of all people, couldn’t pretend she wasn’t there just like everyone else.

He didn’t look though, didn’t even glance in her direction, just kept staring at that damn fire.

Maybe, she thought, she’d slipped in and out of the notebook too the way she did in Hogwarts. Maybe Ginny wasn’t really here at times and but the Ginny inside the notebook just kept moving.

Maybe Ginny had said or did something to Tom that had made him like this.

Finally, finally, he turned his head to look at her, “You should have given me a picture.”

“What?”

“Ellie Potter,” he said slowly, as if Ginny was the one being slow, “Red hair, green eyes, looks just like her mother, that wasn’t enough… No, maybe even if you’d tried, I needed to see it for myself. The great Ellie Potter, the greatest witch of her age, any age, in the flesh.”

“What are you talking about?!” Ginny asked.

He stared into her eyes, but they weren’t his eyes, they couldn’t be. Gone was the sympathetic earnestness, that wry and patient humor, replaced by a dull contempt, “Oh Ginny, haven’t you figured it out yet?”

Ginny felt her heart speed up, watched as, like a misplaced jungle cat, he stalked towards the sofa and threw himself down on it with a satisfied smile. As if everything, finally, was turning up Tom.

“Haven’t I figured what out?” Ginny asked quietly.

“You’d think you’d have put it together by now,” Tom said, “Of course, no one asked for an eleven year old girl to be anything but slow.”

“What are you talking about?!” Ginny repeated, stepping unsteadily towards him, her legs shaking as if they knew what he was going to say before he did.

“The blackouts, the blood,” he flashed Ginny a grin, not bothering to move from the sofa, “Our dear Ellie Potter is looking for you, Ginny, the heir of Slytherin.”

Ginny stumbled backwards, there was nothing to catch her though, nothing to separate her from that shark-like grin on his face, “What?”

“You, Ginny, are my vessel,” he said with a laugh, “The heir of the Slytherin in the flesh, well ink and parchment as it were, but we take what we can get.”

Ginny opened her mouth, closed it, and barely caught herself as she fell onto the carpet.

“Oh, are you really so surprised?” Tom asked, “Did you really never suspect? Not even after the blood? You certainly didn’t think it was Hagrid.”

“I didn’t—” Ginny said, she hadn’t, not even after that night when everything had started changing.

“But you didn’t think it could be you, could be me, either?” he asked, and flung himself off the couch, and then crouched in front of her. He tilted her chin up with a smile, “After all, I was nothing more than a clever enchantment, just a book.”

“Why?”

“I’m tired of being a book, Ginny,” he said with that charming, terrible, smile, “You’ve done me a great favor, laying your fears, your very soul, bare to me. I will be eternally grateful.”

“What have you done to me?”

“Nothing much,” he said dismissively, as if he really meant that, “You offered your life to me, I’m simply taking what’s due.”

“I didn’t—”

“Oh, yes you did,” he insisted with that smile, “What else is friendship, true friendship, but life itself? Didn’t you want to keep me for yourself? Didn’t you tell me all your secrets? Didn’t you ever think, for a moment, that I deserved a world outside this notebook?”

He cupped her face almost gently, with the softest of touches, ignoring how Ginny quaked beneath him, “Ginny Weasley will disappear, that fiend the heir of Slytherin blamed, and I will take her place and walk in the sun once again.”

Ginny gritted her teeth, a thousand words, a thousand curses, held behind them. Finally, eyes burning, she hissed out, “Ellie Potter will stop you!”

She expected him to laugh in contempt, to dismiss Ellie Potter as he always did, but he just grinned, “Oh, I hope she does.”

“You think you can beat her?” Ginny asked, “You really think you’re worse than You Know Who?”

“Oh, honestly,” Tom said, rolling his eyes skyward, “You need me to spell that one out too?”

He gave her a meaningful, oh so contemptuous, look, “Ginny, name a parselmouth, the first that comes to mind.”

Ginny’s mouth fell open into a horrified oh, but she didn’t need to say it, didn’t need to finish that thought for him. The heir of Slytherin, a parselmouth, You Know Who was a parselmouth, he’d once been a boy just like anybody else…

“But you’re right,” he said, “I do think I’m worse than him, or at least, a little cleverer. After all, I know I wouldn’t win against her in a fair fight. I remember that she’s more than a worthy opponent, no matter how young she seems.”

He stood, wiped off his hands on his pants, “Which, of course, is why I will do anything but fight fair.”

Ginny scrambled after him, “What are you going to do to her?!”

He paused, looked over his shoulder at her, and then quietly admitted, “I don’t know.”

“No!” Ginny shouted, “What are you going to do to her?!”

“Sometimes, being here is enough,” he said quietly, “Seeing her again, after all these years, living up to all those distant memories is enough. Just talking to her again, even in this thin, patchwork disguise…”

His expression turned contemptuous, sneering, again, “But then, I want to meet her face to face. Then I remember she left me for this. For this place she can’t even stand, for the likes of you, who she’s never even met.”

He threw his hands out, tilting his head back, and seemed to forget Ginny was there at all, “And I remember that if she’d had any decency, if she had stayed, then maybe I would never be in this blasted notebook to begin with. Maybe, just maybe, we could have had a life together!”

“Yes,” he said gravely, “Ellie Potter and I have much left to discuss.”

“You won’t get away with it,” Ginny hissed.

“Oh, Ginny,” he said, almost fondly, “I already have.”

* * *

Ginny lost track of what she did to the diary.

Most of the time, Tom stopped her before she could even try. Tom was the one wearing Ginny’s face most of the time these days. Because that Ginny who went about her business when Ginny wasn’t there, that was Tom.

Tom doing her homework, Tom chatting with her housemates, brothers, Ellie Potter…

Ginny herself, she’d be a stranger to them, someone they might have glimpsed a few days. She’d wasted so much time squirreling herself away, talking to Tom who ate at her soul, when she should have been making an impression on anybody and everybody.

Tom could replace her entirely and nobody would even know.

She threw the diary into the lake, flushed it down the toilet, threw it into the common room’s fire, tried to cut it in half…

Every time she found herself suddenly somewhere else, the diary clutched in her hands or else tucked away in her trunk safe and sound, and when she found herself dragged back into Tom’s world he’d just throw his head back and laugh at her insolence and stupidity.

Eventually, Ginny knew she’d stop trying, she’d disappear meekly just like he wanted. She’d go into that black void, that memoryless world she’d grown accustomed to, and there’d only be Tom Riddle left out there.

“You try so hard,” he said to her once, “I have to admit, I find it almost admirable, your fighting spirit. Though I do wish you’d stop trying to get rid of me like that.”

“Eat shit,” Ginny spat back at him, like she always did these days, but he never minded.

“Ginny, it’s not that easy,” he chided, “Do you think I didn’t enchant it? Do you really think I’d leave it so unprotected? Water damage and fire isn’t going to cut it.”

“Do you think I care what you think?” Ginny spat back.

“You once did,” he mused, “Not so long ago.”

“Yeah well, not my greatest decision,” Ginny said uncomfortably, desperate to look anywhere but at him, but the common room just kept getting smaller and smaller.

“It’s worked out marvelously for me,” he responded with a smile, “I really am grateful.”

“Grateful,” Ginny said with a small contemptuous laugh, “Right, I’ll bet your grateful.”

“If it makes you feel better,” he said after a moment, “I won’t waste what you’ve given me. Not this time, this time I’ll embrace life fully.”

“And what, become a dark lord again?”

“Perhaps,” he said with a shrug and a distant smile, like he was just picturing his life unfurling before him, “The world’s my oyster now, it’s bigger than Voldemort ever was, I could pick up where he left off or could do anything at all. Whatever I do, it’ll be worth all of this.”

“And whatever that is involves Ellie Potter?” Ginny asked.

Because that, between trying to destroy him, trying desperately to save herself, that she’d noticed.

“Of course,” he said in response.

“What happened to her being overrated?” Ginny asked, glaring over at him, wishing she could do something against him in here (she’d tried once only to remember that this was his world and his turf), “What happened to being so pissed she blew you up?”

“Can I help that the other Tom Riddle grew up to be a fool?” he asked drily, then waived his hand in dismissal, utterly unconcerned by what Voldemort had gotten up to in his absence, “I got over it, I realized you were more right than you could ever imagine. Eleanor Lily Potter is one in billions and billions, Ginny, and I can’t imagine a world or life without her in it.”

“Why not?”

He sighed, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

He eyed her for a moment, his mouth curling in amusement, “You think you know her, love her, but you have no idea what she’s capable of. You’re in love with a piece of propaganda, that thing the wizarding world sold to you without her consent, you have no idea how powerful and terrifying she truly is. Trust me when I say that you wouldn’t understand. This fight with Voldemort, for her, that’s only the beginning.”

He then grinned at her, a crazed look in his eye, “If you had any idea of what she was capable of, really capable of, you’d be running from her in terror.”

“You’re wrong,” Ginny said simply but he didn’t say anything back.

Instead he snapped his fingers, the fake Ellie Potter appearing again, smiling sweetly and demurely, “Here, Ginny, have the Ellie Potter you can handle. Take a crack at the girl you’ve been just dying to meet.”

Ginny was glad that she didn’t get the chance, as she turned away from them both, she managed to claw her way out of the diary altogether.

If only for a moment, anyway.

* * *

And just like that, there Ellie was.

Ginny was in the great hall once again, like it was any ordinary day and Ginny was any ordinary girl. Like she’d never picked up a notebook named Tom Riddle, like her biggest concerns were her grades, quidditch matches, and working up the nerve to tell Ellie Potter anything let alone how she felt.

But Ginny was wasting away and nobody cared to notice. Her brothers didn’t notice, Ron didn’t even look at her in this one moment, maybe the last moment he ever would have a chance to. Percy walked over and above them all. Fred and George entertained themselves. And soon Ginny wouldn’t be here at all and none of them would notice or care.

No one, except, somehow, Ellie Potter.

Ginny never did have a chance to talk to her but even so the girl was staring straight at her, eyes seeming to see through her, to Ginny’s soul held captive by Tom’s chains.

She was standing on the Default table. Behind her, on the wall and ceiling, someone had painted a monstrosity in blood. Who was Ginny kidding, it was probably Ginny herself, Tom whistling through the night while he worked with her hands. Beautiful faces from beautiful paintings Ginny didn’t recognize, static and muggle, stared down at them.

But Ginny could barely see it, all she could see was Ellie Potter standing on that table, looking down at them all.

Then, still looking at Ginny, she spoke.

“I know you’re listening out there somewhere,” Once again, just like on the train, her voice was commanding and captivating, even as her eyes moved past Ginny and roved over the entire great hall.

Ginny hung on every word for dear life.

“I know you don’t expect me to ever find you, hiding behind the one place I never would look, wherever that might be,” Ellie continued, looking everything and nothing like what Ginny pictured, somehow bigger than her body should allow her to be, “And perhaps, if we were playing your game, this might be enough. But, my old friend, we are not playing your game.”

Ellie Potter motioned to all of them, her captive audience.

“This is not a play about chivalrous knights and powerful dragons,” she slowly walked across Default’s table, keeping her eye on every last one of them, “This is not a play about an unseen monster lurking in the dark waiting for the hero to descend into the depths and confront him. This has never been a play about Eleanor Lily Potter. This is my game, this is my play, and I say it’s high time we stop these needless dramatics and collateral damage.”

She pointed out at the audience, “You wish to challenge me, fine. I accept your challenge and we’ll see if you really understand what it means to accept mine! Because you know very well that I don’t play nice and I don’t play fair and I will ruin you if I must just as you will ruin me. And we will play this never-ending game of whack-a-mole as we see fit.”

She shoved her hands back into her pockets, leaned back, and surveyed her audience with a cool detachment, “I will play the prisoner’s dilemma until the sun expands and beyond! So, your excellency, I will make my move as your moves have dictated and we will see what you make of yours.”

Fred and George stood, looked at each other, and then began clapping. Ron shot up, then Neville, then Ginny herself. Soon the whole school was on their feet clapping. Ellie seemed to realize she was still on the table, looked down awkwardly at her feet and the ruined dishes beneath them.

Ginny pushed away from the table, wobbling as she did so, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t watch as Ellie Potter sat back down, as the room continued to cheer, as Dumbledore said something or another.

No, Ginny couldn’t wait any longer, she knew that now.

Ellie was prepared to fight for her, had issued her challenge to the heir directly, and Ginny knew that the bastard had heard every word. He’d probably be waiting for her, had set up some trap for the girl who lived outside of Ginny’s sight.

He’d forgotten about Ginny though, forgot that she’d never let him get that far.

Ginny had to fight the battle for her soul, and she had to win it on her own.

Ginny made her way out into the hallway, stumbled into a closet, then brought her wand up to her wrist. Ginny squeezed her eyes shut, gritted her teeth, and she could almost imagine Tom screaming in her head.

Wait, think about this Ginny, there’s still time, he’d say. You don’t have to do this to either of us. You imagine this will do anything more than slow me down? You think it’ll go any differently than flushing the diary down the loo? You think actions don’t have consequences?

“Shut up,” Ginny hissed.

“I may not be able to get rid of you,” she said to thin air, “But I can get rid of me. I can take your hands, can’t I?”

Ginny could ensure that just as she never got her hands on Ellie Potter he never did either. They’d go down together, her and Tom, and they could find them buried together in Ginny’s dead body.

Without Ginny, there was no more chamber, there was no showdown with Ellie Potter, without Ginny there was nothing. That was the great secret, what he’d never let her stumble on, what he’d never even admitted to himself.

He could hate her all he wanted, look down at her and laugh, but he needed her.

And Ginny could take that right out from under him.

With a scream, knowing that no one could hear her (no one ever heard her), she cast the cutting charm against her wrist. Only, before she could cast the spell, the world went black.

And then, of course, Ginny woke up right as rain in her dorm room.

**Author's Note:**

> For rhombusgirl, who requested the behind the scenes story of Ginny, Trotsky, and Tequila we never got to see. And because I'm trash this is going to be multiple chapters long. But who can resist the lure of Tequila.
> 
> Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated.


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